Viruses and spyware just got more personal for me.
A friend of mine who’s not terribly computer-literate called me late last week. His computer – which was heavily secured with the complete line up of a leading vendor’s anti-virus software – had been badly infested by spyware. He took it to a local computer fix-it place who after two weeks gave up and reformatted the hard drive. When he bought the computer he was not given the Windows disks (fairly common among some large computer resellers), so the computer shop put a version of Windows on there that didn’t pass the Windows Genuine Advantage test. Now I was being asked to help.
Armed with a freshly purchased legal copy of Windows XP, I reinstalled Windows and started applying drivers for his laptop. I installed anti-virus software and Windows Defender for anti-spyware. Unfortunately, while looking for drivers for the DVD drive, I clicked on a link that managed in a short time to get the computer right back where it had been a week earlier (in spite of the AV software and Windows Defender). It was back to a long slow format of the hard drive, reinstalling Windows and using a thumb drive with drivers on it since I was determined to avoid the Internet as long as possible.
The computer is now functional. Its also very locked down with anti-virus software and two different versions of anti-spyware software!
What are my observations? Getting all those pop-ups is very disconcerting. More disconcerting is realizing – personally for the first time – is that there are people out there that are sick enough to want to destroy other people’s computers, folks they don’t even know. These individuals have no respect for privacy, probably hate Microsoft, and don’t care if they’re making life very difficult for an innocent victim.
If you don’t like Microsoft, that’s your gig. Lots of people don’t. There’s a whole group of people out there who are “anything but Microsoft” – that’s their prerogative. But I happen to be of the school that thinks its okay to what you want to do – as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else. These viruses and spyware hurt computers/people big time. I don’t understand the personality that thinks its a joke to unleash devastation on someone else’s computer.
My friend – like many others – didn’t have a backup of his data. That’s gone forever. He will be filing his income tax return late since he was computerless on April 15th. And when I return his computer to him tomorrow, it will be with instructions for automating backups. (Not to mention so locked down that if he triesto install anything he’ll be notified ad nauseum that something is about to change his computer!)
And someone out there who is reading this will find it hilarious that someone like him (or her) was able to inflict do much damage on a computer. I don’t get it.
